NEWSLETTER #1

Dear {FIRSTNAME} {LASTNAME},

We are delighted to host the 10th European Music Therapy Conference which will take place in Vienna, Austria, from July 5 to July 9, 2016.

After three years of preparations for this event, we would now like to start informing you about details of the conference from time to time.

Contents of this issue:

Organisers

Location

Conference theme: “A Symphony of Dialogues”

Call for Abstracts & Scientific Committee

Vienna is getting ready for you…

Organisers

This conference is being jointly organised by the two Austrian member associations of the EMTC (ÖBM – Austrian Association of Music Therapists, WIM – Viennese Institute for Music Therapy), and the Department of Music Therapy at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw).

Together with the European Music Therapy Confederation, we would like to present the 10th EUROPEAN MUSIC THERAPY CONFERENCE as a place and an opportunity to further develop music therapy as a profession and an area of scientific research. All participants will be encouraged to discuss topics relevant to the profession and its backgrounds, disseminate newest research, share experiences and knowledge, and generally engage in exchange, networking, and mutual learning with colleagues from all over Europe and beyond.

In addition to the Local Organising Committee (Thomas Stegemann / mdw, Monika Geretsegger / ÖBM, & Elena Fitzthum / WIM), some 30 enthusiastic music therapists and music therapy students from Austria are currently busy with all the large assignments and little details of EMTC2016... Meet some of them in this picture - and at the conference next year:

Location

The main conference venue will be the campus of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, right in the city centre:

In our special evening events, you will also get to see other great venues in historic Viennese buildings... stay tuned for more information!

Conference theme: "A Symphony of Dialogues"

Entering into and maintaining dialogues may be seen both as a key purpose and a core competence of music therapists. With this conference’s theme, “A Symphony of Dialogues”, we would like to facilitate dialogue in all its manifestations within music therapy: Apart from investigating and reflecting on the multitude of forms that dialogues can assume within clinical settings, we also want to focus on feasible forms of dialogue between theory, research, training, and clinical practice. Other areas of dialogue related to our field are those between music therapy and adjacent fields such as medicine, education, or counselling, as well as health economics and political dimensions of dialogue.

We also like to view the event of the conference itself as an embodiment of dialogue in all its various shapes and forms. Participants are invited to actively engage in these dialogues and to integrate familiar and novel knowledge and experiences in a way that is meaningful both to them and their own work, and for the field of music therapy in general.

There will be diverse opportunities to join in dialogues not only in a conceptual way, but of course also in a literal sense and by means of musical improvisation…after all, aside from its meaning denoting a large-scale orchestral composition (naturally quite familiar in the Viennese context), “symphony” as derived from its Greek origin still means “sounding together”.

Vienna is getting ready for you...

Not just the members of the conference organising team have been busy with preparations, but also the city itself:

Vienna has rehearsed welcoming Europe when the Eurovision Song Contest took place in Vienna at the end of May this year. Everyone was joining the "BUILDING BRIDGES" motto - even public transport!

Alas, 0 points for Austria in the competition this year... but the atmosphere was great. So join us in building bridges in Vienna in 2016 to make sure that there will be "douze points" for music therapy!

Meanwhile, the city´s best musicians are already testing their glittering stage outfits and rehearsing their pieces for EMTC2016´s exciting social events… less than a year to go!